The oldest son of Antiochus
VIII claimed the Seleucid throne
by attacking & killing his uncle, Antiochus
IX (95 BCE). A few months later, however, he was driven into
exile by his cousin, Antiochus
X, launching a family power struggle that fragmented the Seleucid
empire & plunged it into all out civil war. Seleucus himself was
killed in a tax-revolt at Mopsuestia, Asia Minor. Each of his younger brothers
(Antiochus XI,
Demetrius III &
Antiochus XII) launched challenges that cost Antiochus
X effective control of large segments of Seleucid territory.
This twelve year dynastic feud in turn cost all Seleucid pretenders any
lasting allegiance from their
subjects & opened the door to foreign domination of their once mighty
empire.

This silver tetradrachma minted at
Antioch in 95-94 BCE
bears a realistic portrait of
Seleucus VI on its face, while the iconography on the reverse
illustrates his claim to mythic status. The
image of Zeus bearing Nike, the goddess of victory, in
his outstretched right hand is a convention borrowed from coins
of earlier Macedonian rulers. But the inscription--Basileos Seleukou
Epiphanous Nikatoros ["of king Seleucus, Manifest
Victor"]--more explicitly equates the supreme deity of the
Hellenic pantheon with the issuer of this coin than any monarch
since Antiochus
IV. It is an irony of history that this claimant of divine
supremacy was dethroned by his own kin & killed by his
subjects within months after this coin was struck.